Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Frank Lloyd Wright's laboratory wasn't built for comfort

The dining room chairs Frank Lloyd Wright designed for his home in Oak Park, Ill, weren't built for comfort, but rather to create an illusion the space was taller than it appeared. (Scott Beveridge photo)

By Scott Beveridge

OAK PARK, Ill. – Frank Lloyd Wright built his first studio in such a manner to impress upon potential clients that he stood out from all competing architects.

Wright positioned its front porch across the street from a row of tidy Victorian-era houses in order for him to frown down on those buildings when greeting prospective customers at his front door, a tour guide said today at the Oak Park, Ill., home and studio of one of the best architects America ever produced.

"This is where he could look across the street and say, "I don't do that. Those are stick houses,'" said Monte Levinson, a retired physician leading about a dozen visitors today through this complex Wright began building in 1889 for his family and business.

Levinson presented himself as a Wright devotee, spitting out anecdotes with perfect accuracy and in rapid fire, often focusing more on them than the architectural details of this national landmark house built in the seaside style at the corner of Chicago and Forest avenues.

"He was absolutely a difficult man," Levinson said, while standing in Wright's former office, an octagonal room adorned with the architect's signature oak furnishings and art-glass windows. "He was a curmudgeon."

Wright's customers were forbidden from entering the drafting room and kept waiting in the adjoining foyer.

"He would not ask you what you wanted. He'd tell you what your needs were."

In private Wright berated city planners for ignoring nature in their designs and then would play the role of a contrarian in public.

The hero of this story, though, was Catherine Wright, the rejected first wife of this builder and mother of his six children for whom Wright erected this two-story house constructed with Chicago brick and wooden shingles painted brown.

She was a suffragette who gave many civic lectures on the responsibility of the wealthy to care about the less fortunate and earned a master's degree in social work after Wright left her in 1909 for Mamah Borthwick Chaney.

Wright and Chaney fell in love while he built a nearby house on East Avenue for the Chaneys while they, too, were still married.

That house still stands today, albeit in need of attention in an otherwise well-kept suburban Chicago neighborhood speckled with either Wright designed or inspired houses.

However, Mamah Chaney met an untimely death in 1914 during a murderous rampage at Taliesen East, the house Wright built for her in Wisconsin.

Wright designed 1,200 buildings in his lifetime and 125 of them were produced in this studio, Levinson said. He built a debated 460 of those designs, including 30 around the corner from his studio.

Frank Lloyd Wright chose a seaside-style of construction for his first home, using it to experiment in organic and prairie-school architecture. (Scott Beveridge/O-R)

The home and studio grew from a $5,000 loan from Wright's boss, Louis Henry Sullivan, a renowned Chicago architect. To get the money Wright made a promise to continue working for Sullivan, only to sneak behind his back and build four "bootleg" houses in Oak Park, Levinson said.

Wright used this house as a laboratory, designed similar to a spin wheel to maximized the size of rooms that jut out from a central fireplace. It was here where he experimented with organic design techniques that made it appear the rooms flowed seamlessly to and from the outdoors.

While pocket doors were fashionable during this era, Wright shed them in order to allow the eye to travel throughout the first floor of his house. Widows were arranged high on walls so visitors would gaze out to trees rather than neighboring houses.

Paint colors for the walls were limited to those of the autumn, including olive green and Wright's favorite, Cherokee red.

He included built-in couches in the living room, something he would include in many more houses to follow, including Pennsylvania's beloved Fallingwater in the Laurel Highlands.

"He wanted people to sit where he told them to sit," Levinson said.

In the dining room it didn't matter if the chairs were comfortable for seating. Wright designed them with seats too low for sitting and backs so tall they would have given his dinner guests leg cramps.

Wright was an illusionist. At 5-feet, 6-inches tall, he wore two-inch heels to make himself look taller, Levinson explained, before embarking to the second floor to show off two opposing rooms with vaulted ceilings that hover over the first floor like giant lunchboxes.

About Scott Beveridge

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Welcome to Travel with a Beveridge. Most of the stories, photographs and videos on these pages are the work of Scott Beveridge, an award-winning writer and photographer at the Observer-Reporter newspaper in Washington, Pa. He takes his morning coffee strong, preferably brewed with fresh-ground Sumatra beans, drives a Ford and looks for weird things.

This blog also is a place to promote the work of aspiring young writers and showcase occasional stories written by established scribes. Thank you for pulling up: Grab a stool and make yourself comfortable.

More information about this blogger can be found at his Linkedin and Facebook accounts

"The Gamble on Donora Steel" is an occasional series by Scott Beveridge about the history of steel manufacturing in Donora, Pa.

Industrialists had taken a chance by investing in sprawling steel, wire and zinc mills on the western banks of the Monongahela River in what would become known as Donora, Pa., in 1901. Little did they know that an environmental disaster combined with difficult labor relations would cause this complex to become the first of its kind to permanently shut down decades later in the fall of America's Industrial Revolution. The short stories about the rise and decline of this borough, mostly drawn from headlines in the local newspaper, appear under the following links:

WELCOME TO NOWHERE

Scott Beveridge grew up in Webster, Pa., a village along the Monongahela River that experienced one of worst environmental nightmares in the United States. His family moved there in 1960 about the same time the nearby zinc and steel mills ceased production. Those mill furnaces were to blame for the damages that awoke America to the dangers of air pollution. After their demise, the grass and trees began to return to the barren landscape that appeared as if it belonged on the moon. His short stories about that adventure appear under these links:
Introduction: The warning signs were there

The artichoke dream

Scott sends dirty clothes home when on the road

If you are like him when you travel, your clothes seem to take up more space in your suitcase after you have worn them. Take a tip from Scotty and mail yourself a package home filled with those dirty socks, underwear and T-shirts after you have been on the road for five or six days. You can buy a box and enough postage at the post office for less than $15. Postal workers seem to get a kick out of the idea, and they will even help you fold your box and tape it closed, too. Seek out a post office in a small town, where the workers have more time to gossip, while driving to a tourist destination. Now, you have room in your carryon to cart home your souvenirs, without having to worry about them getting broken or flown to St. Louis when your switchover is aiming for Pittsburgh.

He also hates road warriors; prefers to chill on down time

The successful traveler packs a personality blessed with patience and some understanding of the road.

Scott says do everyone a favor and STAY HOME if you are an anal retentive, control freak who spends far too much time complaining about life. When traveling, folks always take the risk of flight delays and cultural misunderstandings, or having companions who don’t wear watches or luggage and could land in Macon, Ga., when they are flying to Istanbul.

So keep a book or two in your carryon in case you are stuck in the airport in Haiti while rebels are burning tires in the streets and preventing the pilot from reaching the cockpit of your plane. That bag should also carry any prescription drugs you need, deodorant and toothpaste, along with a toothbrush, clean pair of underwear and T-shirt.

When you arrive, please don't linger in your hotel room. Go outside to meet interesting people. You can sleep when you get home.

Always take a moment to sit down and remove your shoes, like the old man in Hanoi, who is shown in the above photograph at the Temple of Literature in Hanoi.

And before you fly overseas, please check with the U.S. Department of State to find out which countries hate Americans the most.